Writing & Beer, Not Necessarily In That Order

I watched a BBC documentary the other day.Now, like most BBC docs, it was a pretty good program…but that isn’t what got me to thinking about this post.No, what got me to thinking was one specific line/thought from the show.It was a line that has stuck with me, a line that started thoughts knocking and thumping, asking — demanding — to be written:

“My life, it’s slipping away.”

When you’re young, a year is a lifetime.The world is a parade of faces, both new and old, met amidst adventures and experiences and days that seem to last forever.

But that doesn’t last.

Life changes as you get older.Life changes, but still you can hold to some of that enthusiasm and adventure and zest.Still you can remember what is was like when a day was a lifetime.

But even that fades.

One day turns to another.One week, one month, even one year, passes and you barely notice.It all becomes about getting through from one day to another, from one paycheck to another, one year to another.You don’t live, you merely survive.

Survival is not life.

When we were kids, we were promised so much.When we were kids, we dreamed…everything.It was all there, all in our grasp, an entire universe…an entire life.

And then it all began to slip away.

Slowly, sometimes, and far too fast at other times, those dreams — those hoped-for realities — began to slip away.As we got older, as we matured, they slipped and faded.We slipped and faded.

The days — the weeks, the years — are no longer a lifetime.No, they have become instead something to be endured rather than lived.They have become a haze of time with one moment indistinguishable from another, the simple ticks and tocks of a fading beat.

Life isn’t supposed to diminish as it passes, life is supposed to be more.